News Archive

• BP has appointed Andy Holmes as president of BP Australia. He succeeded Paul Waterman, who was appointed head of BP’s global lubricants business and will be based in the UK.•...

Partners Tullow and Statoil are hoping to be the first explorers to make a commercial oil discovery in gas-rich Mozambique. Drilling of the Cachalote well within offshore Blocks 2 and 5 in the...

Iran touted a record $25 billion invested into the country’s upstream sector last year, such money pouring into the development of the country’s resources despite sanctions. Managing Director...

AIM-listed GeoPark Holdings scored two successful wells in a span of one week in the Llanos Basin onshore Colombia. Last week the Tua-4 well of the Tua oil field on Block 34 tested at 526 boepd...

Technically recoverable shale resources from 41 countries have grown 10% over the last two years, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The last assessment in 2011 only covered...

Greece’s largest refiner Hellenic Petroleum sold $662 million principal amount in 8% senior unsecured euro-denominated debentures due 2017 at 102.5, its first issue ever. Alpha Bank, Credit...

In its core Bakken acreage, EOG Resources is conducting a 160-acre spacing pilot program. Part of that program includes testing the correlation between increased sands volumes used in fracking...

There is ample energy supply coming from increasing diversity of resources, BP said in its annual statistical review. In terms of the traditional sources oil and gas, one increased while the...

Foreign oil companies OMV, Repsol, Eni, GDF Suez and Shell and locals Statoil and Det Norske were awarded production licenses in Norway’s 22nd licensing round. The government granted 24 oil and...

Range Resources has generated a 30% decline in unit costs from $4.30 in 2008 to $3.00 in 2012. Prices in all categories dropped over the five-year period, but reserve replacement costs fell from...

Northwest counties draw the most attention at Colorado lease saleLate last week, we attended the quarterly Colorado State Land Board lease sale. The auction offered parcels across the state,...

“We’ve already entered an era that’s not OPEC-centric anymore,” said former head of reservoir management of Saudi Arabian Oil Co. Nansen Saleri. Due to technological advances to extract...

The shoulder season has been exerting significant pressure on gas prices over the past few weeks. After listing at around $4.00/MMbtu for just over a week, the Henry Hub front-month fell $0.17 (4.0%)...

WTI along with other market indicators is down this morning (dropping $1.21 to $94.56/bbl as of 11 a.m. EDT) on news that the Bank of Japan will forego further stimulus measures. However, oil prices...

Taking the view that even ultradeepwater and Arctic developments should be economic at $80 crude, Oppenheimer analyst Fadel Gheit says that high US production and diminished demand will pressure oil...

A JP Morgan Cazenove analyst contends that European oil majors are undervalued as a sector, having underperformed the equivalent US firms by over 30% since the start of 2010, some of which is can...

The Mexican Agriculture Ministry said that the Export-Import Bank of Korea has granted the country a $20 billion credit line for infrastructure projects that will include further development of...

• HRT spudded the Murombe-1, its second offshore well in its back-to-back exploration campaign in the Walvis Basin offshore Namibia. The well is 137 miles northwest of Walvis Bay in water depth...

• Indonesia opened a rights tender for 21 oil and gas exploration blocks on May 17, two of which are for unconventional gas concessions on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The auction...

• Balin Energy’s first completed vertical well on the Northern Block offshore Latvia failed to find hydrocarbons. The company drilled a 4,790 ft exploration well with semisub Ocean Normad....

• Petroamerica has started drilling the La Casona-2 appraisal well on the El Eden Block in the Llanos Basin onshore Colombia. The well is targeting the Gacheta and Une formations that tested...

• Lundin Petroleum plugged and abandoned wildcat well 7/4-3 as a dry hole. The well was drilled 15 miles north of the company’s operated Brynhild field in the North Sea offshore Norway, and...

• Australia’s natural resources and mines ministry said six areas in central, southwest and far-north Queensland will be auctioned and the tender process will close on November 22. The areas...

• Eni sold more than 55 million ordinary shares of Portugal’s Galp Energia for $886 million via a private placement managed by Goldman Sachs and Mediobanca. The sale represents nearly 6.7% of...

• International energy trader Vitol Group renewed and increased the one-year revolving credit facility for its Singapore-based Vitol Asia unit. The new facility closed at $2.21 billion, an...

• Comet Ridge appointed nonexecutive director Christopher Pieters as commercial director• Ithaca Energy appointed Jannik Lindbæk as non-executive director. He previously served as...

• Aurora Oil & Gas started drilling on its recently acquired operated Eagle Ford acreage near Sugarkane field. The JP Heard Bower-19H well was spudded on May 31 and will be followed by an...

• The state of Nebraska raised $951,000 in oil and gas lease sales at the May 14 auction. Most of the leases are located in Dundy, Chase, Red Willow and Hitchcock Cos. in the southwest corner of...

• BP appointed Paul Waterman head of global lubricants. Andy Holmes has been appointed president of BP Australia.• Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations hired Bruce Koch as CFO. He...

• Daybreak Oil & Gas tested two wells at its East Slopes project in Kern Co., California. The Bear-5 and Bear-6 wells (31.3% NRI) tested at 25 bopd each. Also at East Slopes, the Sunday-6 was...